Some of Rose’s criticisms look unfair in hindsight. Others were accurate.

He is Tottenham’s longest-serving player, yet despite his club’s consistent over-achievement, the 28-year-old still has not won a single medal.

That interview wasn’t truly "important" in the wider sense, but one line from it was key.

“I am opinionated and I might not have long left in football,” said Rose.

“One thing is for sure, for the rest of this career, I will play this game how I want to play it and, while I am not going to disrespect anyone, I am going to voice my opinions.”

Rose has certainly been true to his word.

Before last summer’s World Cup, the FA threw open their doors to the world’s media and made all 23 of Gareth Southgate’s squad available for interview, in a move which earned the governing body deserved plaudits.

There must have been more than a hundred interviews conducted during that hour but England’s reserve left-back gave the only one which mattered.

Without having told Southgate, the FA or even his close friends and family of his intention to do so, Rose opened up to myself and two other newspaper journalists about his mental health.

He spoke of being diagnosed with depression, of having been on medication, of his shock when a beloved uncle — with a sunny disposition and apparently optimistic view of life — had committed suicide and also spoke of his torment at an incident in which a gun was fired at his brother.

Southgate is a huge admirer of Rose, who shares his national manager’s feeling of loving football as a game but not as a business.

Yet there must have been countless people, suffering from depression and struggling for self-esteem, who would have taken huge comfort from hearing a successful and wealthy footballer laying bare how indiscriminate mental illness can be.

Dave Kidd

Yet even Southgate did not think the timing of Rose’s extraordinary interview was ideal, so close to the World Cup.

And the first thing many people in football said to Rose, after he’d given that interview, was that it might cost him a move to a bigger club and make him less marketable.

That is the attitude he is fighting against in an industry which knows the price of every footballer but often fails to value the human being.

Yet there must have been countless people, suffering from depression and struggling for self-esteem, who would have taken huge comfort from hearing a successful and wealthy footballer laying bare how indiscriminate mental illness can be.

If an England star heading for the World Cup doesn’t feel ashamed or cowed by his mental illness, then why should they?

The other day, Rose — having been the target of sickening monkey chants while representing England in Montenegro — spoke out about racism. And he did so in the best possible way.

He didn’t speak in cliches, with the well-meaning but trite phrases many employ when they discuss racism.

He spoke without a script, with rawness and anger. He spoke in a way which made people genuinely uncomfortable.